Acting on a recommendation of Stanford’s Advisory Panel on Investment
Responsibility and Licensing, the Board of Trustees announced that
Stanford will not make direct investments in coal mining companies. The
move reflects the availability of alternate energy sources with lower
greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

Who is this Advisory Panel?

In taking the action, the trustees endorsed the recommendation of
the university’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and
Licensing (APIRL). This panel, which includes representatives of
students, faculty, staff and alumni, conducted an extensive review
over the last several months of the social and environmental
implications of investment in fossil fuel companies.

Maybe the unelected VSU Foundation
will listen to the newly-appointed
special committee on sustainability.
Imagine the VSU Foundation Chairman making a statement like this,
or VSU’s President making it for him:

“Stanford has a responsibility as a global citizen to promote
sustainability for our planet, and we work intensively to do so
through our research, our educational programs and our campus
operations,” said Stanford President John Hennessy. “The
university’s review has concluded that coal is one of the most
carbon-intensive methods of energy generation and that other sources
can be readily substituted for it. Moving away from coal in the
investment context is a small, but constructive, step while work
continues, at Stanford and elsewhere, to develop broadly viable
sustainable energy solutions for the future.”

Like at VSU (and at lagging Harvard),
it was students who started the process at Stanford:

“Fossil Free Stanford catalyzed an important discussion, and the
university has pursued a careful, research-based evaluation of the
issues,” said Steven A. Denning, chairman of the Stanford Board of
Trustees. “We believe this action provides leadership on a critical
matter facing our world and is an appropriate application of the
university’s investment responsibility policy.”

“We are proud that our university is responding to student calls for
action on climate by demonstrating leadership,” the Fossil Free
Stanford group said in a statement. “Stanford’s commitment to coal
divestment is a major victory for the climate movement and for our
generation.”

Other fossil fuels did not meet some of those criteria, but
“this is not the ending point. It’s a process,” she
said. “We’re a research institute, and as the technology
develops to make other forms of alternative energy sources
available, we will continue to review and make decisions about
things we should not be invested in. Don’t interpret this as a pass
on other things.”